The week before the election of US President Barack Obama, I watched with great curiosity an interview on the ABC’s 7:30 report of three time Pulitzer Prize winner and renowned author Mr. Thomas L Friedman. I cannot recall what it was about this interview that persuaded me to run and grab the next pen I could find that worked to hastily scribble down the title of his new book, but within the next twenty-four hours I had purchased a copy and began devouring its content whilst the list of books I intend to read continued to gather dust. Perhaps it was that this interview seemed so timely. Friedman spoke clearly about the connection between the state of American politics and its place on the world stage, and why greening America was a practical solution to reinventing itself in the wake of a broken economy, terrorism, and two wars.

America has lost confidence in the very dream that made it great, and has made many enemies in the process. That dream, whereby anyone can improve their lot in life is the reason why peoples from all over the world have flocked to her shores. The stories of a multitudes of people in search of a better life and filled with the hope that America promised. I was reminded quickly however that the American dream comes at a price. As in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby;

 

“I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder."

 

In a globalised world The American dream, like Gatsby’s home, has been exported all over the world and now it is not just a few trees on an island that have had to make way but a planet of natural resources under threat by exploding economies in a world that is threatened by the convergence of three increasing trends. The world is becoming hot, flat and crowded. Hot in the sense that climate change is making certain parts of the world uninhabitable leading to a host of issues which if you flick on the news you would hear about most nights of the week. Flat in the sense that, as economies in the developing world grow, rising middle classes will depend more and more on natural resources to improve their quality of life. Finally, crowded, in the sense that population growth, particularly in developing cities is straining the supply and demand of energy resources.

 

What are the consequences of the incidence of these three trends, and why will a green revolution based on clean, renewable, cheap and readily available energy supply start to improve the situation? As natural resources, particularly coal, gas and oil are rapidly depleted, supply of energy tightens. As supply decreases, demand is simultaneously increased due to expanding middle class populations. As demand increases, and supply decreases petro-dictatorships get richer. As these non-democratic states in control of large swathes of valuable natural resources get richer, terrorists get more funding and these states get cheekier. Here it must be noted that Friedman is by no means a sensationalist doomsayer. On the contrary, Friedman’s rationale for greening America and consequently the world is an outline of a plan that is an important pillar in an international peace project. This in particular is why I personally found this book incredibly insightful. Greening an economy is not just a remedy to your Western guilt complex on recommendation by Dr. Feelgood. It has practical consequences such as political stability.

 

Using this argument as a baseline, Friedman proposes a well researched and practical approach to beginning a green revolution. He examines in detail the energy industry and how regulating taxation and laws can be used to create incentive to drive innovation. He looks at the state of China and how the empire that once was responsible for the invention of gunpowder, glass and paper might once again lead an age of innovation grounded in the notion of sustainability. Let us hope that Friedman’s message gets heard with open minds and that his enthusiasm is not in vain. His aspirations for greening America and the world are more ambitious that the Marshall Plan and if implemented would have more profound and beneficial consequences.

 

Whilst reading this book I could not help but note the similarity in the type of systemic and innovative transformation that Friedman is proposing and the work we do at Ensemble. It came as no surprise then, that in chapter eight that Friedman touches on the subject of hybrid cars and the competitive advantage Toyota made for itself by coming up with the Prius. “The Toyota Prius hybrid car is a perfect example of a new system replacing an old one and creating a whole new function that is greater than the sum of its parts.” (p.185) Ensemble are champions of the work of Dr. Deming who after the Second World War helped teach the Japanese to build manufacturing industries grounded in profound systems knowledge. As implementers of the Theory of Constraints and Systems Thinking methodologies, Ensemble looks beyond reductionist solutions to systemic breakthroughs that deliver better goal output. Friedman quotes Jonathan F. P. Rose, who puts it better than I ever could. “Optimising individual components can lead to incremental change; optimising the system can lead to transformational ecology.” (p. 185) Friedman proposes a vision that goes beyond an environmentalism that encourages us to change a few light bulbs and hope that Greenpeace does the rest. Hot, Flat and Crowded outlines the shift in paradigm that America and the world needs to embrace with hearts, minds and wills, that will lead to a transformation in business, international and domestic politics, our relationship with nature and each other. Without systemic change, and a desire to lead the world to a maturer version of its fledgling dream, America like Gatsby may continue to hope for a Golden Age that will never return in the same form and irreversibly lose its place on the world stage.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”